Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/436

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SCHOMBERG, Sir CHARLES MARSH (1779–1835), captain in the navy and lieutenant-governor of Dominica, born in 1779, was the youngest son of Sir Alexander Schomberg [q. v.] In 1788 he was entered on board the Dorset yacht as captain's servant, and in 1793 on board the Cumberland with Captain (afterwards Sir Thomas) Louis [q. v.], whom he followed to the Minotaur. On 30 April 1795 he was promoted to be lieutenant of the Rattler, from which in August 1796 he returned to the Minotaur, and was in her, as lieutenant, in the battle of the Nile, and afterwards in the operations on the coast of Italy. On 3 Sept. 1800 he commanded the boats of the Minotaur, under Captain (afterwards Sir James) Hillyar [q. v.] of the Niger, in cutting out two Spanish corvettes at Barcelona, for which he was moved into the Foudroyant, and served through the Egyptian campaign as flag-lieutenant to Lord Keith [see Elphinstone, George Keith, Viscount Keith]. In August 1801 he was put in command of the Charon, employed, with a reduced armament, in carrying the French troops from Egypt. For his services at this period he received the Turkish order of the Crescent. On 29 April 1802 he was promoted to the rank of commander, and to that of captain on 6 April 1803, when he was appointed to the Madras, stationed at Malta till the spring of 1807. The Madras was then put out of commission, and Schomberg returned to England, after an absence of ten years.

In the following November he was appointed to the Hibernia as flag-captain to Sir William Sidney Smith [q. v.], with whom he went to Lisbon, and thence, having moved into the Foudroyant, to Rio de Janeiro. In January 1809 he was appointed by Smith to the President; but, as another captain for the President was sent out by the admiralty, Schomberg returned to England, arriving in April 1810. In June he was appointed to the Astræa of 36 guns, fitting for the Cape of Good Hope, whence he was detached as senior officer at Mauritius. On 20 May 1811, in company with two other frigates and a sloop, he fell in with three large French frigates with troops sent out from France as a reinforcement for their garrison at Mauritius, of whose capture they had been ignorant. After a brisk action, one of the French frigates, the Renommée of 40 guns, struck to the Astræa; the other two escaped for the time, but one, the Néréide, surrendered at Tamatave a few days later. In April 1813 Schomberg was moved into the Nisus, in which he went to Brazil, and convoyed a large fleet of merchant ships to England, arriving at Spithead in March 1814. On 4 June 1815 he was nominated a C.B. From 1820 to 1824 he commanded the Rochefort in the Mediterranean, as flag-captain to Sir Graham Moore [q. v.]; and from 1828 to 1832 was commodore and commander-in-chief at the Cape of Good Hope, with his broad pennant in the Maidstone. On 21 Sept. 1832 he was nominated a K.C.H. and was knighted. He also received the order of the Tower and Sword from the Prince of Brazil. He was afterwards appointed lieutenant-governor of Dominica, and died on board the President, flagship of Sir George Cockburn, in Carlisle Bay, Barbados, on 2 Jan. 1835. He was unmarried. There are three portraits, by Sir W. Beechey, now in the possession of different members of the family.

[Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biogr. iv. (vol. ii. pt. ii.) 817; O'Byrne's Nav. Biogr. Dict.; Service-book in the Public Record Office; James's Naval History; Troude's Batailles Navales de la France, iv. 127; information from the family.]

J. K. L.


SCHOMBERG or SCHÖNBERG, FREDERICK HERMAN, Duke of Schomberg (1615–1690), born at Heidelberg towards the end of December 1615, was only son of Hans Meinhard von Schönberg (1582–1616). His mother was Anne, daughter of Edward Sutton, ninth lord Dudley (d. 1643), by his wife Theodosia, daughter of Sir James Harington, and sister of John Harington, first lord Harington of Exton [q. v.] The castle of Schönberg, of which the picturesque and extensive ruins, situated on the left bank of the Rhine, above Oberwesel, still attract attention, was finally dismantled by the French in 1689. His father, Hans Meinhard (see a life of him in Moser, Patriotisches Archiv für Deutschland, viii. 109–248), marshal of the Palatinate and governor of Jülich-Cleve, held an important position at the court of the elector Frederick V, whose education he superintended and whose marriage with the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I, he arranged. His mother died in giving birth to him, and seven months afterwards she was followed to the grave by her husband, on 3 Aug. 1616. Placed under the guardianship of his uncles Heinrich Dieterich and Johann Otto, and having as his godfather the elector Frederick, Schomberg was brought up under the tender care of his grandmother, Dorothea Riedesel von Bellersheim. He was not five years old when the fatal battle of Prague (29 Oct. 1620) shattered the hopes of his patron, ‘the winter king,’ and, being shortly afterwards placed under the tutorship of Jacob Mohr,